We are well off topic now, but since the discussion seems to have drifted yet again to aspects of the club where we believe there are issues, I would suggest there are three main problems;
1. Academy is not producing enough first team players.
This has been discussed at length before but I don't think we should underestimate it. Saints, Wigan, Leeds all have a very strong track record with their academies and I personally think it's just as important as our recruitment. With the departure of Harvey Livett, we now have a gap of 6 years where we have not produced a squad player (Philbin and King).
2. Our recruitment has been poor.
We have probably spent too much time bringing in expensive 'stars' to gain publicity rather than focussing on deficiencies in the squad eg it was a long time before we got some form of Briers replacement and more recently the two bench props that a blind man could have spotted. The Board, KFP and Price will all have an input in this area, but as KFP is in charge of the month to month financial running of the club I think he is probably the main culprit here.
3. The coach is underperforming.
We should be consistently top four and winning silverware with the money we spend on our squad, but it's not happening. It's difficult to pinpoint what has gone wrong here because we see so little of what Price does with the squad in training. But we do know he is relatively inexperienced and lacks a track record of success. Tactics, particularly close to the line have been poor. Defence as you might expect from an Aussie coach has been good. He is very risk averse, so we see little exposure of the academy kids and given the option he tends to play the same group of players from the squad. He doesn't seem to be able to lift the players and motivate them when the chips are down. Considering the long hours he works he just doesn't seem to have the talent for the job.
